HARTFORD HOUSING AUTHORITY
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Wal-Mart Sees Value In City Site
Now A Suburban Fixture, Chain Looks To Anchor Hartford Complex
By CARRIE BUDOFF Courant Staff Writer March 8 2002
Wal-Mart, the discount department store chain better known for its reach into the suburbs, is staking a claim in Hartford as the anchor tenant of a new 67-acre retail and industrial development.
The company has signed with a developer to open a 150,000-square-foot store on a piece of land near the West Hartford border where the 1,000-unit Charter Oak Terrace public housing project once stood. Another 150,000 square feet of space for about 20 smaller retailers and restaurants also is planned for the site.
The project is the latest and by far the largest of several commercial developments in the past decade in a strip that straddles the Hartford-West Hartford line. At 300,000 total square feet, the retail/restaurant complex would be almost as large as the shopping center that includes Sears and a strip of smaller stores at Corbins Corner in West Hartford.
The retail component is part of a larger plan for the site that includes office and light industrial space and a job training center for at-risk youths and young adults.
Announcement of the project follows years of planning that started in 1995, when the Hartford Housing Authority decided to demolish Charter Oak Terrace and replace it with homes, which are already in place, and an industrial park intended to create jobs for tenants.
The plans revealed Thursday show retail taking a more prominent role than originally planned. But officials involved with the project said the development would still generate as many as 800 jobs once fully built.
"It is one of the most significant transformations of a neighborhood in the history of a city," said John D. Wardlaw, executive director of the housing authority. "What we finally decided to do was some retail and light industrial. In my opinion, I think it is a fantastic combination."
In contrast to the battles Wal-Mart has fought in the suburbs - as well as a general backlash to traffic-generating "big box" developments - the retail project is getting some positive reaction in Hartford, where the government is hungry for tax revenue and residents need places to shop in the city.
Some elected officials and community activists said they were disappointed the project may not generate as many manufacturing jobs, which generally pay more than service sector jobs, as they had originally anticipated. But they acknowledged that it would still create jobs and address the urban exodus of retailers.
Even over the border in West Hartford, a community that once pondered banning big-box stores, officials cheered the news.
"Both the Hartford and West Hartford sides are popping," West Hartford Mayor Jonathan Harris said.
The project would be in an area that has become a destination for suburban-style commercial development. On nearby New Park Avenue are the 17-screen Crown Theatre and a Stop & Shop supermarket. Just down the road in West Hartford are Home Depot, BJ's Wholesale Club and Raymour & Flanigan Furniture.
"This is a big deal for Wal-Mart to be in the city limits," said Tim McNamara, a commercial real estate broker with the SullivanHayes Companies in Farmington. "Wal-Mart is typically more of a suburban tenant."
Wal-Mart spokesman Keith Morris said the site is an ideal location: It is open land at the end of the Flatbush Avenue exit off I-84 and close to other commercial development.
At 150,000 square feet, the store would be larger than most of the other 23 Wal-Mart stores now in the state. It is not slated to have a grocery store, but would include a garden center and tire store, Morris said.
The developer, CBL & Associates of Chattanooga, Tenn., has been working on the project for more than two years, since the housing authority picked it as the developer. The Housing Authority, which is also getting new offices as part of the project, is leasing the land to CBL & Associates.
The project will need a series of state and local approvals, including traffic, site and design reviews. Officials are shooting to break ground by the end of the summer on the Wal-Mart, the job center and other yet-to-be named retail tenants, most likely a mix of national chains and local stores.
Harry H. Freeman, executive director of the Hartford Economic Development Commission, who also worked with the developer, is also talking with tenants for the light industrial piece, which would be spread over 10 acres.
Construction would be completed in the latter part of 2003.
Though the project includes some local road improvements, traffic is a concern. "I would hope that we won't find ourselves overrun with traffic," West Hartford Town Manager Barry Feldman said.
And questions about the quality of the jobs created and the benefits the project would bring to the city and its residents are sure to be raised over the next few months of public discussion.
Wardlaw said he sees it as the "ideal solution for the city of Hartford and the crime and social ills that Hartford is facing."
The developer and retailers will look to the housing authority as a resource for job referrals, Wardlaw said. It has the opportunity to create wealth for housing authority clients and other city residents, Wardlaw said.
Economic development officials are likely to emphasize the numbers.
The housing authority is expected to collect about $500,000 on the land lease, while the city could realize as much as $750,000 in annual tax revenue once the project is built, Freeman said.
Councilwoman Marilyn Rossetti, a Democrat who followed the Charter Oak Terrace project as a community activist in the mid-1990s, said the project would fill a gaping hole in retail options for Hartford residents.
It's a psychological boost to a city that has seen its large retailers flee, some residents said, from the Main Street department stores to the recent closing of the Bradlees store on Park Street.
"I always want the most money, the best jobs," Rossetti said. "I am torn sometimes. But in the end, I think it is the best thing."
Courant Staff Writer Daniela Altimari contributed to this story.
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